


Repeating Worlds

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Fluff, pointless sleepy romance on a november morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 01:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20035510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: The light is different on winter mornings.





	Repeating Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from my tumblr (Nov 2016).

The light is different on winter mornings. Well - late autumn really, but a cold nose and cold toes and the windows fogging when the first sunlight of the day hits them certainly _ feels _ like the beginnings of winter, England moving back and forth between worlds that only exist on such quiet mornings as she walks through one of France’s country homes, stepping from soft shadowed places into the golden faeriedust of slanting sunbeams en-route to the kitchen. There will be frost soon, a glittering lacework to wrap up each little universe, colder noses and toes yet to come, and many more days when England will rise before the sun.

For now, there is just the sleepy sight of France’s kitchen in the slowly growing sunshine, warm woods and mellow tiles for the light to make glow. Even if England hadn’t been in the house before, she knows France well enough to know his kitchen; across his homes, things tend to be laid out in the same patterns, and France always keeps his teas, coffees and cocoas in the cupboard above the cupboard where he stows his kettle, and the kettle is nearly always half a room away from the kitchen sink. England rifles through the cupboards to find it and soon has it full and set to heat on the stove, going back to the cupboards with the hemlines of her flannel pyjama pants slipping down for the burnt orange teapot and tea.

In Paris, France has all the shiny new kitchen appliances: things that gleam with metal chrome and shiny plastic, that whirr and click and make deep dark coffee and creamy foam. With them come the greatest selections of hot drinks to prepare, the finest ingredients to drink to match all the fine ingredients France insists on picking up fresh for his meals. Out in the country, his cupboards are full of local produce, half-forgotten gifts, and anything he remembered to bring with him from the city - always a smaller selection than the Parisian range, but never lacking in quality.

England finds Lady Grey (the citrus too bright for that morning), strong, pure Assams (too bold for the hour), and a tightly-sealed tin of tiny, shiny pellets of smoky gunpowder tea (better suited for an evening curled up before the fire). She settles on some vanilla and cinnamon black tea, warm and sweetly spicy, filling up the teapot when the kettle has boiled and cooled a little way and placing it on an old plate (she can’t find the trays) alongside two mugs and the thickly-sliced half of a sweet fruited loaf she helps herself to from France’s little larder.

Back in the bedroom, France is still sleeping, the early light picking out the strands of his fine hair the same way it finds silvery dew-droppéd cobwebs in the hedges. The cold had been noted enough for him to pull on a thick nightshirt the night before, though it gapes at his collar. England had fallen asleep with his pointy nose burrowed in the secret space between the pillow, her shoulder and her nape, and woken even _ more _ tangled up in a foreign nightshirt and limbs. (Really, it is lucky her hair is short this decade. Had it been as long as it could get, France’s weight on it in that position would have pinned her painfully to the bed.) Without her warmth in the bed beside him France has instinctively turned his face even more into England’s pillow - a problem to consider as England sets down her plate on the bedside cabinet.

Outside the bedroom window is the morning, the French countryside, and another world. In the different parts of her England recognises it, almost recognises it, and doesn’t recognise it all - it is not her land, but it is a land she _ knows, _ something of the salt and wood and chalk of her bones feeling more of a connection to the blood in the earth that once lay under the vassalage of an English king than to the memories made just by looking at those now-French fields. She and France had ridden horses through those fields once, long, long ago, when both of them had been young, imperious wild things. It had been the same time of year then too; when England closes her eyes she can recall the leaves spinning down from the trees and the smoke of her breath in the air, and the fast hard beat of France’s heart against her budding breasts when he had held her close a few seconds too long after helping her down from her mount. Their cheeks had been flush with cold and excitement from the fast ride, France’s eyes on her had been bluer than winter, and all their furs had been askew.

_ Then _ and _ now _ are separate places entirely. _ Now _ is England in the French countryside with her host to ‘get away from it all’, with no politics for a little while - or at least, as little politics as their kind can manage when they are so intrinsically _ political _ -, just. France and England, quiet. Sleep. Good food. The bed and a warm blanket that looks like something Canada must have once made (England recognises the patterns the sweet child prefers). Embroidery, walking in the countryside and catching up on some truly awful literature. France had lit the fire in his living room the night before and declaimed some truly terrible French erotica to England’s increasingly louder laughter, eventually sitting on England to make her listen to his deliberately melodramatic reading when she had tried to escape from him and only giving in when she had laughed so hard she had managed to buck him from his tortuously triumphal side-saddle position sitting on her hips. They had rolled around the floor to fight for the right to burn the truly trashy paperback, and by the time England had won (with England straddling him at that point France had decided halfway that he would rather shove his cool hands up underneath England’s jumper to steal all her heat) both their bellies had been sore with a good hurt, from laughter, the breathlessness under their ribs and the sheer delight caused by France’s ungraceful _ spluh _ noise when he lifted his head up from the floor for kisses and England blithely pushed the paperback in his face.

“Frog,” England says a lot more gently than she would usually, her knee on the mattress of the bed as she attempts to stir France from her pillow. Usually, the two of them gravitate apart in sleep, but the cold has clearly made France clingier than usual, his body seeking out _ her _ leftover warmth.

France _ nnn_s in his sleep, a little more of his face turning towards the light.

England lets her fingertips brush back some of France’s hair over his cheek, allowing the sunlight across his skin and calling France up a little more into wakefulness. “Shift over, you. Some of us would like to be able to get back beneath the covers.”

France screws up his eyes and grumbles like a disturbed cat, but he moves - slowly - back enough England can lift the bedcovers and slide in, settling her back low against her pillow and the headboard behind it without squashing France’s head. France wraps shamelessly around her again, his head nudging over England’s leg and finding some middle ground between her stomach and lap, his hair catching on all the fluff of her old tartan flannel pyjamas. The air is warm with the sweet scent of vanilla and cinnamon. England rolls her eyes but settles one of her hands atop France’s ridiculous froofy head, sifting through the strands of his hair and picking out red and green bits of fluff.

Disturbed by the movement, France slowly, groggily blinks awake. His hand lifts, stretching over England’s stomach to curl around her hip - and then pauses consideringly, before even more slowly dragging itself upwards, along England’s side and ribs, half-taking her long-sleeved buttoned-up shirt with it.

_ “Douce,_” he murmurs, and England feels the point of his nose drag sleepily across her belly, the curve of his cheek and faint scratchy noise of his morning stubble against flannel. When his eyes squint themselves open, he is looking up at England’s face. “… _ Salut_. C'est quoi ça?”

“Good morning,” England tells him slightly more dryly, attempting to pull her pyjama top back down. “I brought you tea.”

France _ mm_s at her in response, his head tipping downwards again, _ burrowing _ into England’s stomach. His goddamn _ nose _ finds the space between two of her buttons, nuzzling into the skin underneath, his breath very warm and making the muscles in England’s abdomen jump.

She feels France _ smile. _

“C'est quoi _ ça_?” he murmurs again, sounding just as sleepy but infinitely more pleased with himself than before, so England flushes and drops her closed _ fist _ on his head.

“You already said that.”

France’s chuckle vibrates England’s middle, his hand languidly dragging up and down England’s side. There is yet another world here, in this strange soft sort of peace. “The best things bear repeating.” His accent in English is thicker than usual, a foreign twisting _ burr_.

They have repeated a lot of things, both of them, together and apart.

“They say hell is repetition,” says England. Perhaps, if she twisted a little bit, she could pour out the tea…

“_Comme ci,_” France says distractedly, still nuzzling the flannel under his cheek, working open the buttons of England’s top with persistence alone. If he uses his hands, England will thump him again, “_comme ça. _ Both can be true or false together or separately, very much for us.” He _ sighs, _ and the hot gust of it goes under England’s flannel and against her skin. “You are so soft this morning, _ petite_.” Unlike his nose, France’s mouth is very warm that morning, full from slumber and pressing against her stomach where her buttons are undone. “Always you should be soft like this. I am in love with your bellybutton.”

The winter morning air feels _ horribly _ cold against the deep red of England’s cheeks. _ “Frog, _ I want my tea.”

“Not stopping you, _ petite,_” says France, and kisses her again, sending another little shiver up England’s spine she will blame on being unable to get further under the covers.

“You really are,” she says, conscious of the warm weight all over her middle, the way the sun is sliding ever more warm and golden into the bedroom and turning France’s hair to yellow gold.

How many mornings have they done this over the long, long years? Each alike but different, repeating worlds, each different from the last.

France groans but lifts his head, still bleary-eyed at the corners and his lips turning down into a pouty _ moue. _ “You are a _ tyrant _ when it comes to your tea.”

Cheerfully, England pats his cheek. “Don’t encourage me to be more tyrannous yet.” She can reach the plate on the bedside cabinet again at last, stretching out to pour both mugs full of slightly oversteeped tea and bringing one back so she can wave it under France’s twitching nose. “Do you want this, or would you rather complain how terrible I am?”

After a moment’s pause, France takes the mug. The neck of his nightshirt still gapes wide, and England can watch his throat work when he takes a slow, careful swallow of his drink. His eyes flutter in the steam.

_ “Chaud,_” he complains. _ Hot. _

“You’re lucky it’s not _ cold _ considering how long it took you to wake up and move,” England says, and reaches for her own tea. She doesn’t drink it yet, content to feel the warmth of the mug bleed through to her chilled fingers and palms, watching the way the morning light is changing as it moves about the room. The worlds of the early hour have almost completely faded now, and she and France fall so easily (too easily) into their old routines. “There’s some fruit loaf as well - I left it unbuttered so we didn’t get oily fingerprints on your sheets.”

“That will not stop _ crumbs,_” France grumbles. “I will have to make the bed.”

“Would you prefer that I had made you a cooked breakfast?” England asks him, mildly.

They both already know the answer to _ that, _ and France’s expression freezes for a moment in pure horror at the thought _ . _

“I thought not,” says England, and snuggles a little further down under the covers, into the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> France's French here is - deliberately - informal and technically grammatically incorrect, because he's sleepy, wants brevity, and formality would be odd. So maybe don't use it in your French class.


End file.
